A college student was thrown into ICE detention with chains around her wrists and ankles after a minor driving violation, according to local news reports.
Ximena Arias-Cristobal, 19, was accused of making an illegal right turn at a red light in Dalton, Georgia, on Monday. She now faces a month before seeing a judge, and possible deportation.
Her father, Jose Francisco Arias-Tovar, was also scooped up as part of President Donald Trump’s brutal crackdown on immigrants. He was detained two weeks ago after being caught doing 19 miles over the speed limit in nearby Tunnel Hill.
The two family members are being housed in the same Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility located in Lumpkin, Georgia, a three-and-a-half-hour drive from their hometown.
“Her mother and two younger siblings are now without two family members/incomes,” a GoFundMe fundraiser set up by a friend of the Dalton State College student states.
ABC affiliate News Channel 9 obtained a police report of the traffic stop that landed Arias-Cristobal in an ICE detention center.
It said Dalton Police asked the teenager for her driver’s licence. She told the officers that she has an international driver’s license, but didn’t have it on her at the time of the stop. State law requires non-citizens to have a valid Georgia driver’s license within 30 days of becoming a resident.
Court records show that she was then arrested for driving without a valid license and failure to obey traffic control devices. Cops took her to Whitfield County jail before she was handed over to ICE.
The jail has an agreement with the force that means it can “identify and process removable aliens.” Arias-Cristobal was born in Mexico and has lived in the U.S. since she was 4 years old. She did not qualify for the Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program as it had ended the year before the family arrived in 2010, family friends said.
Her mother admitted to News Channel 9 that the family came to the country illegally. She said, however, that she has no criminal record and pays taxes.
Her younger sister told the publication that the family were chasing the American dream. “They came in with big dreams because they wanted a big future for my older sister,” she said. “And, you know, my sister goes to college, and she was an honor student since middle school. And she runs. She loves to run. It’s her passion, and the only reason they came is to follow my sister’s dreams.”
She added that her father owns a construction company but he was unable to obtain a “job permit or visa.”
Republican Georgia state Rep. Kacey Carpenter was among those appealing for leniency in Ximena’s case.
In a letter to the judge shared with News Channel 9, he said: “The reality is, the conversation has always been that we need to get hard criminals out of the country. Unfortunately, the people that aren’t hard criminals are getting caught up in the wash. It seems like we are much better at catching people that are committing misdemeanors than people that are actually a danger to society.”
An attorney told the publication that Ximena’s mother will most likely be arrested soon. Her other children will be “removed” with her to avoid splitting the family up, Terry Olsen added.
A GoFundMe set up to raise money for an immigration attorney and bond has so far raised almost $43,000.
It comes after ICE deported a husband and wife to Mexico with their three young kids, even though two youngest of them are U.S. citizens. The Trump administration was also accused by Venezuela of the “abduction” of a 2-year-old girl after her migrant parents were deported without her.
Homeland Security has been contacted for comment.
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